Add posts to Sidebar through theme options page

OK, so I have a page for my theme options which currently lets you add analytic code, and select three “home boxes” or posts for the home page. When you select the 3 pages, they each have a drop-down box listing all the pages in that WordPress db. I want to add an option that is similar but instead of pages I want it to show all the posts, and then also tell it to only use the first x amount of text, and use the featured image as a thumbnail.. I have this code so far which lets me see a drop-down and select a post, but I cant get it to save that post option or anything else..

<th scope="row"><label for="ad1">Ad 1</label></th>
			<td>
            	<select name=\"archive-dropdown\">
				<option value=\"\"><?php echo get_option('ad1'); ?></option>
				<?php wp_get_archives('type=postbypost&format=option&show_post_count=0');("name=ad1&show_option_none=".__('- Select -')."&selected=" .get_option('ad1')); ?> </select>
			</td>